


Even Wolves May Smile

by drikstreedur



Series: Gold and Gunpowder [11]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: EXTREMELY graphic descriptions of corpses and gore, Fake AH Crew, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 16:31:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13617246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drikstreedur/pseuds/drikstreedur
Summary: In which Gavin works on a "personal project"





	Even Wolves May Smile

It took a few days for Ryan to wake up fully again, and once he did he was still dazed and dizzy. Head injuries had a tendency to leave the head in an odd fog, after all.

Gavin had been asleep at the edge of Ryan’s cot when Ryan’s awareness finally managed to zone back in enough for him to remember his name and where the hell he was, head on a small pillow Trevor had insisted he keep with him so he didn’t end up straining his neck too much. He was snoring softly, and one of his hands was resting over Ryan’s. Ryan took a moment to realize that he was in the infirmary in the penthouse, and that oh shit he was in a fair amount of pain. He winced and groaned, screwing his eyes back shut and fighting off some tears prickling at the corners of his eyes. Absolutely everything was just engulfed in searing pain like he was covered in molten metal. He didn’t have any memory of what had happened at the abandoned office building, or even that they had gone there. He remembered the plan to go somewhere, and that’s it. After that his mind went entirely blank.

The next thing he noticed was the oxygen tube across his nose, and the steady beeping and whirring of machinery around him. He looked around in a confused daze, and after a moment he saw Trevor walk through the door. Of course, he didn’t _recognize_ Trevor now, thanks to the lapse in memory from smashing his head into the ground after falling from four stories up. This meant he immediately went into a panic because someone unfamiliar was in the penthouse. The heart monitor attached to him started beeping more rapidly, and Ryan squirmed away from Trevor and slightly closer to Gavin as the unfamiliar man approached. This, in turn, woke Gavin with a start, and it didn’t take too long for Gavin to realize what the problem was and try to talk Ryan back out of panic.

“No Ryan it’s okay! That’s Trevor! He’s supposed to be here, Ryan, calm down!”

Ryan did seem a slight bit comforted by Gavin’s reassurance, but it still didn’t seem to do too great overall for him judging by the distrustful side-eye he was giving Trevor. This was going to take a little bit of effort to fix once Ryan was aware and functional enough to have the situation explained to him.

* * *

 It took another few days for Ryan to be functional enough to leave the infirmary for any real length of time. He was stuck in a wheelchair and a neck brace, but he was awake and able to get himself moved around at least. Of course, he was probably the moodiest he had ever been too. The poor guy had a lasting face that made it look like he was ready to stab someone in the throat, had he been able to actually move his dominant arm enough to do so.

Gavin managed to be able to start hobbling around on his own and going about his business per usual, though he used a cane as support the first few days just in case his leg tried to give out from under him, and he seemed in a better mood now that Ryan was up and moving more. However, he seemed the kind of happy that belonged in a creepy cult in a horror movie, and he was acting off. A lot of humming and zoning out, carrying around a sketchbook and constantly drawing in it with colored pencils and gold ink, but always covering up what he was working on when someone walked by, spending large amounts of time in the storage room he’d turned into his art studio and where he usually stored his creative supplies except for when he cleared out his toolbox temporarily. This lasted close to a week until one night he just left for some reason. The entirety of the crew (save for Ryan, who was asleep on an armchair thanks to being doped-up on painkillers) searched the penthouse from top to bottom for him, and the clue to where he was ended up being at his studio. There was a note on the door, written in glittery gold gel pen:

_Out working on a new public installation. Back in the morning! -Gav ♥_

Well, at least he hadn’t just run away. Jeremy, who was the one who decided to check on that room, snatched the note off the door and rounded everyone else in the penthouse up to tell them where Gavin had gone. The collective sigh of relief from everyone was amazing. Michael walked up behind Jeremy and rested his chin on the shorter man’s shoulder to look at the note. He paused a moment then.

“Then why the fuck are like ninety percent of his supplies sitting out next to the couch?” the Jerseyite asked, gesturing over to the massive plastic tub of spray paints and inks next to the couch. “How the fuck is he doing an art project without his paints? What’s he gonna do, take a shit and smear it on the nearest wall? Because lemme tell ya, that boy has way too sensitive of a gag reflex for that.”

And the room went silent. Michael was right. Gavin had taken his toolbox and his brushes, but the majority of his paints, perhaps even all of them, were in the tub where he would store them while he cleaned out the toolbox. The plot sure had thickened there, hadn’t it? There was a collective moment where everyone was trying to internally reason out why Gavin didn’t have his paints before Jack suddenly spoke up.

“Didn’t he buy like eight massive buckets of gold paint yesterday? And a fuckton of glitter, and some ribbons and wire?” she asked, and indeed Gavin had gotten plenty of sparkly gold supplies the day before. Plus, he’d been holed-up in his studio half the time doing papier mache or something, judging by the amount of glue he always had to wash off his hands when he came out to eat something. Maybe he was doing something that just required gold, and he had been preparing beforehand? That was the most logical explanation at least.

Best just wait for morning to see if he actually came back un-maimed.

* * *

Gavin was back at the penthouse before anyone else was awake yet, and had taken residence on the couch to curl up and doze off. He needed to make up for the lost sleep from the last few days, after all. Ryan had been moved back to his bedroom where he belonged shortly after the discovery of Gavin’s whereabouts, though he wasn’t too happy to be woken up and shoved in his wheelchair just so he could get taken into his room and go right back to sleep again. Jack had put the lid onto the tub all of Gavin’s paints were in after she’d made sure Ryan wasn’t struggling against being made to sleep in his bed like a civilized human being. Everyone else had gone to bed shortly after the whole debacle with trying to convince Ryan to stop being a total dead weight to get out of the armchair.

Once everyone was out of their rooms, passing through the living room to get to the kitchen and eat breakfast, there was a collective wave of relief that Gavin was back and asleep soundly on the couch. Granted, he was splattered in gold paint and… Wait, was that blood? Why did he have blood on him? Trevor checked him over silently to be sure he wasn’t injured, and sure enough he didn’t have a scratch on him. So where had the blood come from? Ryan was even more confused than everyone else, since he wasn’t even aware that Gavin had been gone all night. But Ryan’s growling stomach interrupted his curiosity about why Gavin was asleep on the couch at eight in the morning and covered in paint and blood, and he ended up wheeling himself into the kitchen for something to eat.

Ryan used the excuse of being injured and currently unable to walk in order to convince Geoff to make him breakfast, and even with the guilt trip Geoff only begrudgingly agreed to it. Ryan ended up stuffing an entire army’s worth of breakfast down his gullet, complete with grapefruit, cereal, eggs, bacon, toast, and a glass of orange juice. Even Michael was amazed at how much he’d packed away that morning, and Michael was known to be the master of cramming food into his face.

It was close to noon when Gavin finally woke up and went to take a shower, and as soon as the couch was vacated Geoff was flipping channels lazily. He skipped over the twelve o clock news after a few seconds, but backpedaled and flipped back to the news after a quick, startling realization that he’d seen something important.

"A group of joggers early this morning stumbled upon a gruesome sight that appeared to be staged as a public art exhibit,” the anchorwoman spoke, firm and grim in her words. The other crew members gathered around the couch in curiosity after hearing her speak the lead-in sentence to the breaking story.

“Several people identified as members of the notorious gang Trinity were found dead. Their bodies were defaced, posed along with props and some sort of papier mache sculpture work, and their blood appears to have been replaced with a large amount of gold paint. A warning, the next images you’re about to see are not for the faint of heart.”

The view of the camera switched from the newsroom to a view of the park, and the sight was indeed not for the faint of heart. Several of Trinity’s members, namely the ones who had shot Ryan, were strung-up with wire and gold ribbon to groups of trees, posed in an abstract sort of fashion. Their corpses had been all but eviscerated, pairs of gold-painted papier mache wings had been attached to two of them, another’s rib cage had been splayed open like he had been in the Angel Trap from the SAW movies and he was suspended from hooks dug through his spine, another’s intestines were drooping from his body as a noose of braided ribbon had him dangling from the branches of the tree he was suspended from, and yet another had been beheaded and his body had been rigged to hold it like an infant. The area around the “installation” was splattered with blood, but not nearly enough to signify that they had been killed or gutted there. Instead of blood, the bodies were dripping with gold paint, and several of them had some sort of abstract papier mache sculpture consisting of gorgeous swooping lines below or nearby them. The two with wings attached to their backs were holding up a banner, brilliant gold in color with words of otherwise beautiful script painted on it in what could only be assumed was blood.

_For my Sweetest King_

Gavin trounced out of the bathroom, wearing lazy-day gear pyjama pants and a tank top, and with his hair still damp. He had a particular strut and bounce to his step, and he was singing quietly to himself, seemingly oblivious to the atrocities being spoken of on the nearby television.

 _“You could try and take us_ _  
_ _But we're the gladiators_ _  
_ _Everyone a rager_ _  
_ _But secretly they're saviors_ _  
_ _Glory and gore go hand in hand_ _  
_ _That's why we're making headlines_ _  
_ _You could try and take us, but victory's contagious…”_

Nobody really knew how to ask him, but there was a silent agreement that there was no way in hell otherwise, and that maybe it wasn’t a great idea to bring it up while he was potentially still manic. For a raging dumbass, Gavin sure was learning how to freak out the rest of the crew.


End file.
